Daniel Kelly, a successful interior designer Totnes Paedophile has been jailed for sexual activity with a vulnerable 15-year-old girl more than a decade ago. Daniel Kelly groped the girl’s breasts after kissing her at his former home in Newton Abbot.
He groomed the girl by sending her sexually explicit messages and promising her alcohol and drugs. He preyed on her youth and inexperience to ‘satisfy his lusts’, a court heard.
‘The teenager did not tell police until 2018 but Daniel Kelly’s actions caused deep emotional scars and she still suffers flashbacks. In a statement read in court she said she ‘hated’ him for what he did to her.
Daniel Kelly, aged 40, was 29 at the time of the offences. He has a previous conviction for very similar offences and was jailed in 2017 for two years. Exeter Crown Court was told that since then he had rebuilt his life and earned decent money as an interior designer.
But Judge Peter Johnson said his claims of remorse were hollow because he had pleaded not guilty and was convicted of two offences of sexual activity with a child at a trial in June. He jailed Daniel Kelly for two years and nine months.
The judge said: “During the summer of 2011 you sent her wholly inappropriate texts as part of a grooming process. They made reference to drinking alcohol, drugs and sexual activity. “
When the girl visited his house Daniel Kelly provided booze then kissed her and put his hand on her bottom. A few days later she visited the house with a friend but fell asleep. Daniel Kelly climbed into the bed and fondled her breasts, kissed her on the mouth and put her hand over his penis.
The girl told schoolfriends what had happened but police only got involved after she made an attempt on her own life some years later.
Judge Johnson said the defendant regarded himself at the time as a ‘Jack the Lad’.
“Alcohol was employed so you could satisfy your lusts,” he said. “It is said you have changed markedly and I accept that. This was ingrained behaviour. I find it very difficult to accept your remorse when you didn’t accept responsibility at the trial and it sounds hollow.
Daniel Kelly, of New Walk, Totnes, was made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order which will last 10 years.
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